What are the best sources for City Based games?

[Hand of Evil]

As you can see you will get a lot of different answers, all good but the problem with all city setting is that you have to make them your own, it is one of the draw backs of a city based campaign, there is a good amoutn of work on the back end.

You have Sharn, that is a good start but now you have to place your players into the city and figure out how they are going to interact with everything you have found in the book. Not all that easy but as with all campaigns start small, say a ward or district and build it up, then expand outward as the players explore the city. Use rumors and the 'news papers' as a way to introduce story lines to the players. Lots of NPCs, everyday we meet people, most we never get to know, a few we think are interesting, and one or two that we say hello to when we pass them on the streets.

Have your players help you. Give them homework asking them of a description of a few locations or an NPCs and why they should be in the game.

 

[Psion]

I never found any of Freeport "cartoonish", excepting some artwork that isn't really represented in the actual material.

 

[Acid_crash]

A lot of good suggestions, I'll have to look into some of them.

A few I have read reviews on are Bluffside (didn't like it), Streets of Silver (its okay, but I don't like the religions), Sharn (pretty cool), Freeport (its okay but for this idea I don't want pirates a focus).

The older 2e/1e/Oe books I haven't a clue, I never did play those editions of the game. As for the new ones, one that did pique my interest is City State of the Invicible Overlord, I guess because the title is cool and it sounds grim.

How many of those books have guides to running the city and how to establish a feeling for running it as the main location of a campaign? I need more 'how to' and less 'here is just a bunch of listings' if that makes any sense.

Part of this is that I am new to the idea of using a single large city as the site of a campaign, and it does take some time to get used to it.

 

[Mighty Halfling]

City Services, Landmarks And Businesses In A Fantasy Setting

Try this free online article at www.roleplayingtips.com: City Services, Landmarks And Businesses In A Fantasy Setting

 

[Aaron2]

Other old, and possibly obscure stuff - I use the RuneQuest Cities supplement which has very handy random shops tables...

I liked this one too. It really wasn't a Runequest product.


Aaron

 

[Hand of Evil]

How many of those books have guides to running the city and how to establish a feeling for running it as the main location of a campaign? I need more 'how to' and less 'here is just a bunch of listings' if that makes any sense.

Part of this is that I am new to the idea of using a single large city as the site of a campaign, and it does take some time to get used to it.

Bluffside is good at it because of its layout, location/NPC/Plot hooks then plots for city/orginzations.

Streets of Silver does much the same.

Geanavue is very detailed but just lack something in my book, reads like a tech manual to me.

Freeport is fair locations/NPCs/some plot hooks but not on the level of Bluffside.

Thieves Quarter is really an add-on but does flesh things out.

Sharn (as I said in one of its threads) is not as detailed on locations, mostly listing districts and wards, not buildings, but went the way of a campaign book. Rules are there for a DM to build on, plus it has a lot of things a player can get involved with but the DM is going to be doing some work.

City campaigns are no different from dungeons, entering a room is an event. When you have an event things happen:

1) Description: sight and sound of what the players see
2) Action: things happen, monster attacks or players, room is searched, trap is set off, etc...but some form of interaction takes place.
3) RE-Action: results and counters to 2
4) Clean-up and reward: What was the outcome of the event, gold found, wounds taken, clue discovered.
5) Move on: Where does that lead you, in a dungeon that is easy; a door direct the players to the next event. In a city game it is a clue, the street, the sound of running men but the flow is the same.​

A dungeon if you notice is just a flow chart, you can do the same with things in your city.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

My understanding was that [Freeport] started gritty and got cartoonish in later products but I guess I was mislead

No, actually I think that's a fair assessment. I decided to set my game in Freeport based off of the atmosphere in Death in Freeport, which is definitely dark. Terror and Madness I remember as pretty dark, too.

But since the "later products" include the actual city sourcebook ...

And if my first introduction to Freeport had been Black Sails, I never would have gotten involved.

 

[Psion]

I'll give you that Black Sails is a bit cartoonish (c'mon... it's got freaking DONKEY KONG), but I don't strongly associate that with the city itself.

 

[Big Jake]

I like City Works, myself. If you plan on making your own city, I'd say you should get it. I've used it quite a bit during my Dungeon Magazine Adventure Path campaign.

I also like Theives' Quarter, which gives you a city to use, although only the Old Quarter is fully detailed as of yet.

 

[Desdichado]

I don't know that there are that many gritty city products out there, barring some of the old WHFRPG material like Marienburg, or something like that.

Freeport and Sharn are both easy to "gritty up" with very minimal work, though. You say you have Sharn and you want it more gritty? It's already got most of the leaders with a LN alignment, at best, various shades of evil being quite common, even in the so-called LG church. It's got vast sections of completely uncontrolled and unpatrolled slums, run by crimelords. It's got relatively low-level iconic NPCs.

If you don't think Sharn's gritty enough, you're reading too many of the Cliffside sections, and stuff like that. Keep them away from the (actually quite few and far between) nicer sections of the city, play up the intrique that's already present in the setting, make social mobility a bit harder; and you're good to go.

A "problem" with a lot of D&D games is that the PCs are already tagged by some noble to go solve his problem for him, and then after than they're relatively rich and famous; D&D style celebrities if you will. But picture this; nobody who'd anybody important will talk to these bumpkin 1st level PCs. First time they get involved in some action, instead of being hailed as heroes, the PCs are spun as illegal vigilantes at best; armed and dangerous criminals at worst. And not only that, criminals who don't belong to the organized crime bosses' payrolls, so they're making enemies on both sides of the law, and getting a bad reputation across town as well.

So, if the PC's have to keep a low profile and keep to the seedier sides of town where they won't immediately be hauled in as criminals, I imagine you'll see Sharn turn about as gritty as any other fantasy city out there.

Freeport could be done the same way; and it's already got a rather lawless, criminal history to begin with, making it all the easier. But Sharn is really whetting my appetite as I'm reading it as a potentially really gritty setting to place a game of intrigue, paranoia and general nastiness.