City Supplements - What do we like?

[JConstantine]

I'd like to echo @Whizbang Dustyboots' point about different levels of depth. And I think what's "best" is going to come down to the author's preference combined with target audience.

Doskvol as presented in Blades in the Dark is pretty light on details, deliberately so that groups can make it their own, which I think caters most to the sort who isn't really a worldbuilder, but would like to inject their own ideas into a preestablished foundation.

There's also very clearly others who prefer a fully established setting that they can familiarise themselves with and so they can expend their creative energy elsewise. For this latter level of depth, my favourite is Sharn: City of Towers. It's peppered throughout with potential plot hooks and adventure seeds without explicitly calling them out as such.

I'd also note that detail doesn't have to be "over-written lore dump", or mutually exclusive with gameable content, as long as the author takes inspiration from Chekov's Gun. For example, by all means, expound on how the city went through a plague and X location was built on the mass grave of its victims, but that should lead into something like a necromancer looking to exploit the site for an invasion of undead from within.

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Another top pick of mine would be Damnation City. Not so much a guide to a specific city as it is a guide to making one's own city. Whilst it was written for Vampire: The Requiem, its principles can be applied to any of the WoD, CoD, or other urban horror/fantasy RPGs. I'd say a similar city supplement for other genres would be solid.

 

[Brendan Byrd]

I'm in the middle of writing a city supplement for Shadowdark and it has occurred to me that there are a lot less in the way of design exemplars and best practices out there for city supplements. I don't want to restrict the conversation to just fantasy games either. It seems like city supplements are ripe for the kind of over-written lore dump that I cordially dislike in my RPG books, and a survey of my collection hasn't changed my mind much on that score.

So what are your favorite city sourcebooks, or specific mechanics, or procedures, or rules? You might even tell us why!

A supplement that provides a ready-to-run location, a partially generated locations, or a toolbox to build-it-yourself?

Advice on how to make the best use of what you already have on hand?

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I am in the process of home-brewing up some city “chunks” (Districts) that I can drop, as needed, into whichever city the PC’s decide to start the campaign in. I’m drawing on multiple sources.

I like the approach seen in 1e AD&D Lankhmar, City of Adventure, but I have no intention of mapping the entire city at that level of detail.

Unlike the above, some of my geomorphs will face the street directly, so that I can insert buildings from elsewhere (Dyson Logos, Lankhmar, Ptolus, etc.)
I’ll give the players the option of selecting one of the blank map areas and letting them draw/define the contents of that geomorph as their “home-base”. (My Uncle Gabe runs the tavern here. Home is on the fourth floor of this building, etc.)

< tangent >
I like quality paper, Miraclebind and Filofax notebooks… these were on sale, and A5 is close enough.

< /tangent >

Magical Industrial Revolution by Skerples; to evaluate what impact(s) magic and technology could have, and plan for it.

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For verisimilitude: how far apart are the cities?
AKA details like how much land is needed to support the population at the current technology level. Climate and terrain also.

 

[zakael19]

Doskvol as presented in Blades in the Dark is pretty light on details, deliberately so that groups can make it their own, which I think caters most to the sort who isn't really a worldbuilder, but would like to inject their own ideas into a preestablished foundation.

Where I think Doskvol's details really shine are in, well, the Details portion of each district + the way they extend the blurb which tells the GM how to convey that portion really well. It's a super succinct way to share with the table the tenor and vibe of each part of the city in a distinct way.

Extending it would be adding some additional Landmarks and Notables to assert more about the city.

But I guess my bias and focus is always going to be on things that drill down to brevity and table-usability (I Just look at look at Pirates Guide to Freeport and there's just So Many Words, I think that Harper does way more with less in BITD).

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Magical Industrial Revolution by Skerples; to evaluate what impact(s) magic and technology could have, and plan for it.

Another very good setting. If it was a bit easier to run traditional D&D-style adventures with it -- it wants you to play more of a Regency flavored game, with the social season being the key element of the gameplay loop -- it would be a top contender for me.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

But I guess my bias and focus is always going to be on things that drill down to brevity and table-usability (I Just look at look at Pirates Guide to Freeport and there's just So Many Words, I think that Harper does way more with less in BITD).

Yeah, it's definitely from a different design era and reflects the TSR/WotC/Green Ronin/Kobold Press "wall of text" approach. I don't prefer that myself, but we just had a thread where people expressed very strongly that they like that sort of detail in their game books, so different strokes for different folks.

 

[Fenris-77]

Yeah, it's definitely from a different design era and reflects the TSR/WotC/Green Ronin/Kobold Press "wall of text" approach. I don't prefer that myself, but we just had a thread where people expressed very strongly that they like that sort of detail in their game books, so different strokes for different folks.

My likes and dislikes are all about how gameable that material is. You need some exposition for context but past a certain point its just a novella hidden inside a game supplement. Awesome for folks who like that sort of thing, but definitely not what I want to write.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I don't remember any city supplements (though I remember we had a Ptolus campaign, but I was a player once). What I do remember ins the 3E demographics guidelines for cities. I am not saying it was actually good, it probably focused way too much on game mechanics here.

But I like the idea of a supppement that tells you how to build a city. And I don't mean random dice rolls, I also mean: What kind of features can or should a city have? What should I look out for when designing my own town or city? What are important buildings or functions I shouldn't overlook (or put a magic twist on when taking fantasy?). Why do cities grow or shrink? How does the area around it influence a city, and vice vers? How do cities change over time?

I'd say there are probably non-supplement books like this, written from researchers and scientists in this area, but not that many from the perspective of a RPG city builder

 

[Cergorach]

I really like the old Shadow World supplement 'Eidolon: City in the Sky' as a city book, and that while I never played or owned Rolemaster...

It also depends on how stuff is presented and for what specifically, I really like how Shadowrun did it in the old editions like the London Sourcebook or the Forgotten Realms Volo's guides. How Shadowrun did it wouldn't really work for most fantasy settings though.

I'm always a sucker for good maps! And imho the art of a good city book is how the different locations are both individual, while also sketching the feeling of a whole city.

I also have things like Ptolus, but that was just so damn large that you couldn't read that comfortably, and now that we have digital versions for tablets, I haven't really gone back to it... I might in the future, but I have TONs of other stuff that are higher on the priority list...

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I don't remember any city supplements (though I remember we had a Ptolus campaign, but I was a player once). What I do remember ins the 3E demographics guidelines for cities. I am not saying it was actually good, it probably focused way too much on game mechanics here.

But I like the idea of a supppement that tells you how to build a city. And I don't mean random dice rolls, I also mean: What kind of features can or should a city have? What should I look out for when designing my own town or city? What are important buildings or functions I shouldn't overlook (or put a magic twist on when taking fantasy?). Why do cities grow or shrink? How does the area around it influence a city, and vice vers? How do cities change over time?

I'd say there are probably non-supplement books like this, written from researchers and scientists in this area, but not that many from the perspective of a RPG city builder

Kobold Press has a cities and towns book that's exactly what you're asking for.

 

[payn]

3e DMG II is a great city sourcebook. Its more like a sandbox kit with instructions on running a city. The perfect blend of mechanics and lore.