About running a campaign in a town/city

[Khorod]

BiggusGeekus, you beat me on both points!
Go to Medieval Demongraphics Javascript for an application version of that program. I suspect it is a little too Middle Ages for Theive's World, which seems to be a backsliding early rennaissance. But just raise some numbers here and there...

Sanctuary is a city whose clogged warrens played a central role. So any adventuring in there will need detailed maps. You will need the sewers mapped, and (shudder) a good portion of the Maze.

And if you have the books, the character's of that series were not that hard to think of in mechanical terms. As I recall it was pretty easy to pin most of them down. Remember, though, that many of those many characters almost certainly had Expert levels.

What point in the timeline were you planning on, just out of curiosity? If I weren't the only person in my group of friends to both remember and love Theive's World, I'd be doing this too. (Actually, I'd probably put this part in the procrastination bin and work on house rules, our of fear of mapping the Maze.)

 

[Fast Learner]

The Thieves' World boxed set was pretty nice, IIRC, and they had some expansions. Chaosium put them out. The products were:

2007x Thieves World boxed set
2014 City of Carse (revised from Midkemia original)
2015 Thieves World Companion
2016 Tulan of the Isles (revised from Midkemia original)

If you could find the boxed set, it would help a ton. Lots of NPCs, and a full map of Sanctuary, the sewers, etc. Very cool stuff.

In fact I see it on eBay, current bid at $8:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?viewItem&item=1763706151

 

[Tonguez]

So you see that creating this city is really no different from creating your world. You're just "zoomed in" from a satelite view to a city view.

Other than ednorsing Zaruthustran and letting him know that I've cut and pasted his post to my resource file. I just one to add one thing developing the Zoom Map idea

Think of you city as a dungeon!

A Dungeoun has rooms. corridors, monsters and treasure

A city has neighbourhoods, roads, NPCs and ecounters and information.

Don't over-detail your neighbourhoods just describe there overall feel and the road that the PCs are on - improvise the rest
EVEN let your PCs improvise!
If they need to Find the Redcock Tavern then don't do a map of the seven different routes they might take to get there - just say "entering the Shades you feel sudenly cut off from the rest of the city. The shadows hear are deeper and the noise of the city muffled by the tall buildings which crowd in on both sides. You walk along a few twisting streets devoid of life and finally reach your destination..."

and just to repeat wehat others have said the MOST IMPORTANT thing in City adventures is NPCs - so have lots ready...

 

[Khorod]

But does that hold in a mazelike city, survival in which requires both being a badass and having it memorized in your head? For the DM to narrate that twisty parts of Sanctuary might cause problems if a lot of time is spent there.

I suppose it could be rendered abstract, instead of narrated, by using intuit direction, knowledge[local], etc. A question like this really points out the lack of city-oriented survival skills. Maybe for a city campaign a Street Lore skill would be worth having?

Roll a skill check to remember how to get out of here. You rolled an 18? Okay, you remember two ways. One way leads dangerously close to a known hideout of Jubal's Hawkmasks. The other way just runs trhough the middle of lots of beggars and pick pockets. Maybe you will remember more once you move on...

Creating a good enough way of dealing with that might mitigate the need for 3 level (or more) maps of some parts of the city in question.

 

[Nikodemos]

Hi Folks

Wow never expected to get so many replies.
Thanks to everyone who responded, I suppose I should have said I have the Thieves' World Box set, all 12 main novels and 5 spin-offs. I am thinking of running it using 3E, obviously with modifications for the setting.

Yours Nikodemos

 

[Khorod]

I'd be interested in seeing what you produce for a campaign like that. You should make a webpage or something.

 

[Nikodemos]

Hi Khorod

I will certainly consider doing that, maybe posting to Places & Plots, which is possibly where I should have posted originally, but I have only just spotted, that particular folder. I will being putting the suggestion forward for this campaign to the group I play with tomorrow.

Yours Nikodemos

 

[Sulimo]

The Thieves' World boxed set was pretty nice, IIRC, and they had some expansions. Chaosium put them out. The products were:

2014 City of Carse (revised from Midkemia original)
2016 Tulan of the Isles (revised from Midkemia original)

Whilst I dont have Carse, I do have Tulan and at least my version isnt set in the thieves world. It a more generic supplemnt with a fair amount of Midkemian specific items.

Wish I could get carse, as its one of the few Midkemia RPG items I havent been able to track down.

 

[Khorod]

Do you mean Karse?
Anyone know if a new Midkemia RPG is planned? I heard the barest hints once...

 

[Hand of Evil]

Do you mean Karse?
Anyone know if a new Midkemia RPG is planned? I heard the barest hints once...

Carse is a city book put out some time ago by Raymond Fiest for his world, before he was published. The city is an early version of the one in his books.