Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
The
VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX
is LIVE! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
I suck at describing cities
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="taliesin15" data-source="post: 3042491" data-attributes="member: 22058"><p>there was a great thread a couple of years back where contributors to the thread populated a building, and it kind of built up a series of possible adventures</p><p></p><p>probably a standard suggestion would be to look at classic fantasy literature to see how they did it--there's the Thieves World series (which I enjoyed much more in high school than I did more recently), Fritz Leiber's excellent Fafhrd & Grey Mouser books, and for a real outside the box suggestion, Italo Calvino's superb novella Invisible Cities (which is a set up as a kind of dialogue between Marco Polo and Genghis Khan). Then there's all sorts of classic literature from The Iliad to Chaucer, Dickens, perhaps even some contemporary travel guides</p><p></p><p>the key I think is you want to bring some drama into your campaign--what is the architecture like? The weather? What sort of commerce is the city mainly engaged in? In cities I've been to these things tend to stand out. I noticed most old European cities have plazas of some sort--this is something noticeably missing in the USA. San Francisco has all that fog. Venice is dominated by water, and has a lot of shops selling decorative glass because of the glass factory nearby in the island of Murano. Marseilles is a wild mix of cultures and has a reputation for secrets, smuggling, and a sort of tough cosmopolitanism. New Orleans (pre-Katrina) was full of music, color and celebration. Ft. Worth is dominated by the stockyards in the old part of town, military elsewhere (most of the rest is like any other US city). Are there any major architectural features like the Eiffel Tower? Most of my cities I design have at least one lookout tower that can be seen from most of the city, and far from its walls, for obvious reasons. Some cities were originally fortresses, strong castles, and its keepers built smaller walls to keep the nearby citizenry safe from casual skirmishes. Some were trading crossroads located on conjunctions of rivers, mountain passes, or old roads. </p><p></p><p>I guess what I'm saying is start with the larger features then work down. That's one approach at least.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="taliesin15, post: 3042491, member: 22058"] there was a great thread a couple of years back where contributors to the thread populated a building, and it kind of built up a series of possible adventures probably a standard suggestion would be to look at classic fantasy literature to see how they did it--there's the Thieves World series (which I enjoyed much more in high school than I did more recently), Fritz Leiber's excellent Fafhrd & Grey Mouser books, and for a real outside the box suggestion, Italo Calvino's superb novella Invisible Cities (which is a set up as a kind of dialogue between Marco Polo and Genghis Khan). Then there's all sorts of classic literature from The Iliad to Chaucer, Dickens, perhaps even some contemporary travel guides the key I think is you want to bring some drama into your campaign--what is the architecture like? The weather? What sort of commerce is the city mainly engaged in? In cities I've been to these things tend to stand out. I noticed most old European cities have plazas of some sort--this is something noticeably missing in the USA. San Francisco has all that fog. Venice is dominated by water, and has a lot of shops selling decorative glass because of the glass factory nearby in the island of Murano. Marseilles is a wild mix of cultures and has a reputation for secrets, smuggling, and a sort of tough cosmopolitanism. New Orleans (pre-Katrina) was full of music, color and celebration. Ft. Worth is dominated by the stockyards in the old part of town, military elsewhere (most of the rest is like any other US city). Are there any major architectural features like the Eiffel Tower? Most of my cities I design have at least one lookout tower that can be seen from most of the city, and far from its walls, for obvious reasons. Some cities were originally fortresses, strong castles, and its keepers built smaller walls to keep the nearby citizenry safe from casual skirmishes. Some were trading crossroads located on conjunctions of rivers, mountain passes, or old roads. I guess what I'm saying is start with the larger features then work down. That's one approach at least. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
I suck at describing cities
Top