Keeping urban campaigns simple

I almost always set my adventures in villages or "on the road" because when I run urban campaigns I get caught up in over-describing the city and its inhabitants, and forget basic details like where the inns are.

What are your tips for providing players with a rich city environment without turning it into a Lonely Planet guide with bios of dozens of NPCs and businesses?

I usually do it the same with other environments. I set general themes, atmosphere, etc.

I then develop "parts", so I have a list of various objects, architecture, etc. So I would list things like:

• Beads lace the doorways
• Red is a common colour for buildings
• Smoke billows out of houses

I do the same with people too. So stuff like:

• The clothing is dusty and worn
• Faces even of the young seem ancient

Thus when I need to make something I have a resource to build stuff on the fly. So when player's enter a city I simply build it as I go keeping with these resources and themes. I usually have some completely made NPCs and locations but only if relevant to the plot.

Hairfoot said:

What are your tips for providing players with a rich city environment without turning it into a Lonely Planet guide with bios of dozens of NPCs and businesses?

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Well yeah, I wouldn't suggest doing that. This game is a simulation, so you want to abstract things. Abstract everything that doesn't have anything to do with the 4 main roles (but make sure you include subclasses too, if you use them).

When designing the wilderness is every tree defined? Or blade of grass? No, probably not. Most folks draw a map and define zones and landmarks: temperate forest, desert, barren lands, waterways, roads, habitations, etc.

On a wilderland map of most every area will be uncultivated or cultivated land. It's different in a city as pretty much the whole of it is habitation. For a city or large urban area (I wouldn't want to detail a town over say 2000 pop. all at once) try zoning areas with a key. Define each area, use it more than once, if necessary. And use that to describe the area when the PCs are moving through it. Think of some areas as cultivated (purposefully laid out) and other not-so-much. Then place all the landmarks that define that particular city. Some of these might be elements you'd normally leave undefined, but think of it as labelling the Grandfather tree in the forest while skipping a notice for the others (not that your overall zone description won't include beech, fir, and maple trees (types of smiths, inns, shops, and homes).)

Fighters are about combat, so detail guards, soldiery, authority, defenses, weapons, etc.

Wizards are about using magic, so detail magic schools, wizard cabals, potion magic ingredient shops, and even sages.

Clerics are about using both combat and magic in a divine way, so include places of worship, prominent gods, popular shrines, etc.

Thieves are about thieving, so include a thieves guild, a set of laws to follow (be broken), stolen goods fencers, wealthy (to be pilfered), and more.

And of course add the important people that have control. What other people do in the city has a lot to do with who is controlling things at the top. This is generally many people, so think of the whole as detailing an adventure module. You'll need NPCs in seats of power, lines of relation, schemes and motivations for the named NPCs, etc.

I personally suggest mapping out and detailing just the important things, but only if the PCs take an interest and get involved. I'vm shopping around for a leadership /rulership system as well right now so I can add that element to all four roles /classes. That way they can can make decisions as rulers if they choose to take a seat of power. Right now I'm looking at "Empires of the Middle Ages".

And, of course, keep adding and altering things as the PCs interact with the city.

If the city is a place where the PC's will adventure or spend a lot of time, the most important thing is to keep good note on where they go and who they interact with. After getting a feel for the interests of the PC's, you can develop the parts they need in more detail.

One good thing to do that helps keep the city a changing, liviing place is to introduce events and changes to the norm that are very noticable but might have nothing to do with the actions of the players. If nothing of note happens in a large populated environment other than the events the players have a hand in, then the world seems very static and artificial.

Have an occasional NPC that the PC's know just die. Nothing sinister needs to be connected to it, people die every day. The sudden absence of a familiar face will be a reminder to the PC's that the world moves along and events happen while they are away. Buildings burn down, new buildings are constructed, businesses close up while new ones get started.
A sketchy timeline of events such as these that are readily noticed helps to make the city an evolving place.

UIrban Settings are super simple. HAve a detailed map with each building on it. Use a few stock sizes and shapes of buildings (usually no more than ten or so shapes and sizes) and distribute those widely as "fill". I find this step easiest to do with Campaign Cartographer software, buit did it on large quad ruled graph paper sheets from a desk pad set I bought back in the day. Have a very few unique buildings (Lord Mayor's Mansion, some rich people homes, temples, etc.).

Now, on the big buildings, flesh out those that may be of interest, you can come back to the others later. You only need to do those buildings where major encounters will occur. You might want to write up a brief desctiption of public areas of some of the other unique buildings. No more than a three sentence paragraph on each is necessary at this time.

For the basic buildings you spread about, do some standard floorplans for inns, basic homes, shops, etc. Make up some generic descriptions for various places of business your players might visit. I generally do three different floorplans for each of the basic shapes for buildings and three different descriptions. The key with these buildings is DO NOT ASSOCIATE THE FLOORPLANS OR DESCRIPTIONS WITH ANY SPECIFIC LOCATION ON THE MAP YET.

To keep things straight, I try to put descriptions including basic NPC info on index cards and I use key numbers on the floorplan maps.

Now, when you play and you need to insert, say, an inn, you should have several different size inn floorplans with descriptions that will easily fit in with them. You simply pick an appropriate building on your map, note the key number of the floorplan on your main map and on the index card with the description.

In this way, you have some basic material prepped, but you easily play on the fly and your urban setting grows and is fleshed out as you play. The longer your characters play in the city, the more detailed the setting becomes. You'll find yourself using floorplans more than once and even creating new ones. Major unique buildings will end up getting mapped out and fleshed out on an as needed basis. When your players surprise you and enter a building you haven't fleshed out, do it by the seat of your pants, but take good notes during the play session and make sure you don't wipe away any floorplans you might create on the fly on your battlenmat.

I love doing urban settings as for me, they are the easiest to run and players tend to adventure in them forever.

ExploderWizard said:

If the city is a place where the PC's will adventure or spend a lot of time, the most important thing is to keep good note on where they go and who they interact with. After getting a feel for the interests of the PC's, you can develop the parts they need in more detail.

One good thing to do that helps keep the city a changing, liviing place is to introduce events and changes to the norm that are very noticable but might have nothing to do with the actions of the players. If nothing of note happens in a large populated environment other than the events the players have a hand in, then the world seems very static and artificial.

Have an occasional NPC that the PC's know just die. Nothing sinister needs to be connected to it, people die every day. The sudden absence of a familiar face will be a reminder to the PC's that the world moves along and events happen while they are away. Buildings burn down, new buildings are constructed, businesses close up while new ones get started.
A sketchy timeline of events such as these that are readily noticed helps to make the city an evolving place.

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I second this advice, and also give my own two cents...

Remember to take things one at a time. One of the big anxieties of introducing a big city is wanting to do it all at once. Instead, let the players experience it one bit at a time. Your players will let you know what they're interested in exploring, you don't necessarily need to fill them in on every single shop. After all, how much do you know from merely entering a city.

Your players don't need to be told that there's a blacksmith's until they ask for a place to buy weapons (at which point you can remind them of the anvil they saw outside a workshop near the city barracks). Then you can let the players meet the craftsman at their own prompting. This will feel less like "Here is the city map. The numbers 1-10 are where you uy things, and numbers 11 and 14 is where you get yours quests" and more like a living place that the players need to explore to get the most of.

So what would you say are the essential DM prep priorities for an urban adventure session?

Fallen Seraph said:

I usually do it the same with other environments. I set general themes, atmosphere, etc.


I then develop "parts", so I have a list of various objects, architecture, etc. So I would list things like:

• Beads lace the doorways
• Red is a common colour for buildings
• Smoke billows out of houses

I do the same with people too. So stuff like:

• The clothing is dusty and worn
• Faces even of the young seem ancient

Thus when I need to make something I have a resource to build stuff on the fly. So when player's enter a city I simply build it as I go keeping with these resources and themes. I usually have some completely made NPCs and locations but only if relevant to the plot.

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Great advice, keep some things handy to work with; names of Inns, taverns, etc...NPC names (some great resources are out there like this ). Once you have the look and sound of your city down, think about the smells (wierd, I know)...it can make your description come to life.

You do it the same way you do a wilderness setting.

Start with a general map of the area which contains relatively little detail. Mark the major fortifications, the presence of rivers or streams, the major roads, and label the major districts of the city.

Set an adventure in this area, precisely describing the areas specific to the adventure and setting them in locations which are sensible according to the general layout, but leaving it deliberately vague how to get from one well described area to another. Handwave as much as possible the details of the journeys between the places of interest, noting only that the PC's pass through certain quarters.

If you like, you may place random encounters to provide color and depth, but don't let these drag down the story. It's particularly cool when the random beggar from Adventure #1, Scene #2 ends up having a major role in Adventure #4, Scene #1 but unless you have a definate plan don't go out of your way to introduce random NPC's that have nothing to do with the story at present.

If the PC's plan to go somewhere you haven't planned for, don't go overboard with the details - the PC's probably don't care about them much at present - but make careful note of what you've improved at the end of the session so as to make this new landmark and the NPC's you've created a permenent feature.

As you continue to adventure in one location, the map will become less and less abstract and more and more detailed. Eventually, there will come a point where so much detail has been added that it is a worthwhile excercise to fill in the whole of the map with greater detail. This doesn't mean however that now that you have the detail you'll want to flood the PC's with descriptions of every passing stranger, every building, and every road.

In general, whenever you are worried about how to prep an adventure, remember that every adventure no matter its structure can be thought of as a simple dungeon. Suppose you have an adventure that is event based. This is only a map showing the connections between events. The events are rooms and the PC's choices are the corridors between these events. Instead of heavily detailing locations, spend time heavily detailing who is present at the event and what they want at this stage of the adventure. Similarly, a wilderness adventure is simply a map of zones which are linked to each other by directions of travel. Going 'north' from this room moves you into this room, whereas going 'south' moves you into another. Relatively complicated wilderness areas can be created from just 12 or so zones. Imagine example an island survival adventure where shelter, water, tool, and food sources are in disparate parts of the island and are separated by hazard zones where difficulties are to be faced.

Beyond that, I would suggest for an urban adventure particularly that you pay special attention to preparing calendars, background events, and weather in advance. Rather than detailing every passing stranger as a way to add color and depth, mention only those major events - the wedding of some town leaders daughter, the parade by the masonry guild because this is the holy day of their patron deity, the fact that on this day is a fair and the town is crowded with buyers and sellers from the entire surrounding region, that in the afternoon there is a severe storm, and so forth. At first, these events will simply play in the background, but eventually, as the PC's rise in prominance they'll become more and more part of the life of city - invited to parties, asked to be in parades, sought out by merchants seeking to borrow money, summoned to advise on matters of state, and so forth.

What are your tips for providing players with a rich city environment without turning it into a Lonely Planet guide with bios of dozens of NPCs and businesses?

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So what would you say are the essential DM prep priorities for an urban adventure session?

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I think you've gotten a lot of good advice already HF.

It's different of course if it's a city the characters are just visiting, than for a city that is base of operations and living quarters.

Just go ahead and design out your city if it is a place they spend a lot of time, or get maps to a real city and fill in details or modify them.

I use Constantinople and there were basic and historically recreated maps of the era I use, so all I had to do was add in details that were directly relevant to the character's lives.

That way you always have consistent, background info on whatever you want or whatever the players want to explore, as well as the areas you've detailed as being especially relevant.

I'd also like to echo the advice about change. In any large urban center you are gonna have on-going public work projects, as well as new construction, repairs, demolition, etc. So even if you mistakenly give out so and so info and later on your players say, "hey, that wasn't there last time," you can say, "you're right fellas, it's new construction, or new use."

In cities, especially large important cities like Constantinople people are moving in and out all of the time, things are changing and in flux, there are constant threats, caravans of traders, merchants, and goods shipments, and in the case of Constantinople iconoclastic disputes, occasional military coups, threats of invasion or siege, secret areas like the underground cisterns, the Hippodrome, public games and ceremonies, religious festivals and fasts, huge masses being conducted, new constructions, military parades, VIP embassies, and so forth and so on.

So just keep a list of what is going on in the background.

In my list I include:

War
Threat of Invasion
Religious Ceremonies
Political rallies
Deme competitions
Public games
Horse races
Plague outbreaks
Earthquake
Fire
Pirate attacks on ships
Trade
Political Missions and Embassies
Religious Missions and Embassies
Economic Missions and Embassies
Census operations
Tax regulation
VIP visitors
Construction
Demolition
Spy Operations
Military operations
Naval operations
Criminal activities
Theatre productions
Expeditions and excavations
Public art and building projects
Markets and Forums
Monastery and church affairs
Libraries and Art work
Icon disputes


Keep a list like that and it will always be easy to have stuff going on in the background that makes the city seem absolutely alive. As a matter of fact take that list and you could easily create form it something like dozens if not hundreds of adventure/mission/scenario ideas. And keep a small list of more detailed places they visit often. And work those places into adventure ideas. It makes it feel like the places they are familiar with are constantly buzzing with real and important activity.

There are a lot of ways to do that.

For instance I turned the industrial district and the Dyer's Guild into an adventure about a Persian spy ring that eventually led to an important Theme General at the Strategicon (the War College) being implicated in treason which led him to cause his Cavalry unit to rebel within the city and attempt a civil war and coup. The players often visit the industrial district to arm or have repairs made to their equipment, and often work counter-espionage and often take their orders from the Strategicon. So I just took what they knew and wove it into a single adventure.

And I turned the Deme factions into a full scale city-wide riot in which the players were forced to wade through the riots because their families lived in the Alien Quarters and were caught between the Blue and Green Deme fighting.

And then again some unused and abandoned underground cisterns were infiltrated by a group of bandits posing as traders who were really trying to help Vikings raid the city by weakening city defenses from within the city. Allowing the Vikings to infiltrate in secret and hole up in the abandoned cisterns til they struck at night. The players had to infiltrate the gang, then take a strike force in secret into the cisterns and ambush the bandits and the Vikings.

The church the players usually attend mass at became part of a Patriarchal dispute and they became caught up in a new round of iconoclastic dispute and had to choose between following orders or sneaking a famous hermit artist friend of theirs to Greece, and if caught they could face ex-communication and treason charges.

And it is very good advice about having people change as well. Births, deaths, promotions, new positions, changes of residence, being posted or deployed elsewhere, families of friends coming to your characters for help, etc.

What I would say is keep simple notes on basic happenings and places, keep a few detailed notes about important things, and keep a simple list of important people they will encounter.

For instance I have most of the generals and city officials listed by name but you don't need hit point or armor class info on people like that. What are the real odds that a Theme General will engage in hand to hand combat with one of your players? Almost none, and if it is necessary then you can create that data when needed.

Otherwise you just need an NPC's name and some idea of what he looks and acts like. If he isn't going into combat with your characters then role play his character, not his stats. You don't even need to know his stats.

I've role played dozens if not hundreds of characters in my game and in Constantinople and all I ever needed to know was their name and motivations.

So keep simple lists on what you do need to know, detail when necessary, but otherwise forget all that stat crap. Your players will remember that they met an important person, a valuable ally, or maybe a suspicious spy. They'll never know or need to know most of the time what his stats were.

Anywho, that's how I play it.