City Supplements - What do we like?

[RenleyRenfield]

Chicago by Night (at least the first one) does a great job of having 1 - NPCs that are doing stuff and 2 - things for the PCs to do in it. So many setting books do a great job at describing the locale, but don't actually give you a reason to go there or any good hooks for the GM to use.

Such a good point! Yes!

Some games can feel like "your character is not needed here" or in worse cases "your character will have no fun here since everyone is already doing the things you want to do and better than you at it"... and then as you say there is the whole "we made a setting for you and there is no real purpose to being here!" I have seen all three....

The no purpose to be here can be actually a red flag for a game system overall, where it exposes how the game never really gave players a purpose for their character...

 

[doctorbadwolf]

That's the thing with NPCs. Is it useful to know their stats? Sure, but it can be more useful to know what they know, how they are situated in the world.

Yep. It's easy to make up the stats to suit the story and moment. If you can make NPCs that are tied to parts of the city thematically and dramatically, it then becomes easy to use those NPCs and those parts of the city in a game in ways the players will care about.

Another thing I want in city books is something major and a few things minor that set the city apart from other cities. Things like how Sharn is a mile high city of towers, sure, or how a city in my world of Chevar is built in a fjord with waterfalls flowing through the city from the mountains to the sea, but I also want little stuff like the street food and music scenes and what Little XYZ neighborhoods exist in the city.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Uncaged: Faces of Sigil is a AD&D2e book that really helps flesh out the city of Sigil for the Planescape setting. It’s a set of many NPCs, with different connections between them all, with competing goals and motives, and associated locations.

More about the dwellers in the city than a city guide. But it helps make the setting feel like a lived in place with people who have a history thee and with each other.

 

[Brendan Byrd]

Uncaged: Faces of Sigil is a AD&D2e book that really helps flesh out the city of Sigil for the Planescape setting. It’s a set of many NPCs, with different connections between them all, with competing goals and motives, and associated locations.

More about the dwellers in the city than a city guide. But it helps make the setting feel like a lived in place with people who have a history thee and with each other.

I wasn’t going to mention the “S” word…

The character quotes [and additional commentary -Ed.] are fantastically flavourful!
I know it’s a love/hate thing with the cant, which I suspect has a great deal to do with how much you’ve read it in use (players will be at a disadvantage here).
I have a very strong disliking for the font used for titles/headers.
Evocative? Yes. Legible? Not so much.

“I just don’t feel like myself today.”
-Farrow

 

[VHawkwinter]

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

Hmm.

For me it's all about trying to make it feel living.

It's centrally about a web of factions and characters, who want things, have certain values, and certain resources, and relations with eachother. Chicago by Night, though IMO not ideally presented, understood the crux of the assignment. Over time the city should gradually change as these people do things. Don't try to account for what the players do, but just cover what major changes happen when if the players don't intervene, and what resources these people and factions have to make those things happen. You'll also need some key recurring locales for the city.

Beyond that: procedural generators for rumours and events and people and places can be helpful to flesh things out on the fly; and you need to have name lists for when some randomly generated background NPC steps into object-permanence.

I think that's the core. Anything beyond that is situational to your city adventure at-hand.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Such a good point! Yes!

Some games can feel like "your character is not needed here" or in worse cases "your character will have no fun here since everyone is already doing the things you want to do and better than you at it"... and then as you say there is the whole "we made a setting for you and there is no real purpose to being here!" I have seen all three....

The no purpose to be here can be actually a red flag for a game system overall, where it exposes how the game never really gave players a purpose for their character...

Making space for the PC's actions to matter is an important part of a setting book. Having dozens of plots and schemes without the ability for the PCs to get involved is just as bad as just having nothing to do there.

Yep. It's easy to make up the stats to suit the story and moment. If you can make NPCs that are tied to parts of the city thematically and dramatically, it then becomes easy to use those NPCs and those parts of the city in a game in ways the players will care about.

Another thing I want in city books is something major and a few things minor that set the city apart from other cities. Things like how Sharn is a mile high city of towers, sure, or how a city in my world of Chevar is built in a fjord with waterfalls flowing through the city from the mountains to the sea, but I also want little stuff like the street food and music scenes and what Little XYZ neighborhoods exist in the city.

The biggest crime for a published setting book these days is for it to be generic. Any GM can create a bog-standard city, town, or location. What I need is something wild and exciting. Something not boring.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Making space for the PC's actions to matter is an important part of a setting book. Having dozens of plots and schemes without the ability for the PCs to get involved is just as bad as just having nothing to do there.


The biggest crime for a published setting book these days is for it to be generic. Any GM can create a bog-standard city, town, or location. What I need is something wild and exciting. Something not boring.

Yeah the only place i want generic is a section on building towns and cities, and even then i want examples of exciting points of interest.

 

[Fenris-77]

Something not boring.

You found my (hopefully) secret sauce. I plan to do a little bit less in terms of specifics (specific plots and scenarios) in favour of having lots of interesting people and places and some direction about motivations and interactions.

 

[Fenris-77]

Part of this approach is about space and gameability. In the same page count as a fully-fleshed out scenario I can sketch out dozens of conflicts and evocative possibilities. Also, the more specific scenarios you have the more the book is for folks who want to run those scenarios and not use the city more broadly. Unless you're bloody Ptolus of course, but I'm not writing something with the thickness of battle tank main armour.

 

[Brendan Byrd]

Making space for the PC's actions to matter is an important part of a setting book. Having dozens of plots and schemes without the ability for the PCs to get involved is just as bad as just having nothing to do there.

Which brings up where the upper limits are for the PC’s.

< rambling thoughts >
How much is that is determined by the genre of the urban setting?

(D&D frame of reference)
So, if “Urbanite” were a character class, what are the class features available to the character? How do those class features interact with the urban setting in a way that makes the class worth bothering with?
Likewise with a “Builder” character class.

Any specialized downtime options available for the character classes?

If becoming Mayor is a possibility, what’s that worth in the game’s setting?

Which iconic NPC’s have impenetrable plot armor?
< /rambling thoughts >