Cityscape ToC

[qstor]

yeah I'm probably going to pick it up too. Thanks for posting the table of contents.

Mike

 

[DrNilesCrane]

Has anyone picked it up yet and taken a look at the content? Curious to see how useful it is before shelling out the cash.

 

[JustKim]

Yes, I have it. I flipped through it some last night and the first chapter left a strong impression. I wasn't really impressed with the crunch sections, but they're a small part of the book. Mostly the book is game-inspecific good advice for making a city realistic and memorable. It's a good book for me because I've always felt like my urban depictions are a little weak. I noticed a picture of Sigil (or how one artist envisioned Sigil- at odds with Planescape depictions), but it only seems to be mentioned in passing with a note to "see Manual of the Planes" for more information. There are guilds and organizations, but I didn't notice any PHB2 affiliations. That was kind of disappointing because I thought affiliations were much better than the DMG2 options.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Good, then, the tangent was worthwhile, even it had no direct effect on Psion or his opinion.

It has bugged me for quite some time that so far I've only portrayed druids as enemies of urban civilization - which is quite problematic for a campaign setting that focuses on urban adventures.

But I think I now know the way out of this dilemma...

 

[Felon]

You have rodents of all kinds, pigeons, owls, bats, foxes and a whole bunch of other animals. Just because they are all very small and good at hiding from humans it doesn't mean they aren't out there.

I reiterate: if your urban animals are just scavenging filth-dwellers, then you're talking more about an oozemaster or blighter than a druid.

And at least in the city where I live, the trees probably outnumber the buildings.

Well, you don't live in a pseudo-medieval city. You live in a modern city where people will haul lumber in a truck for miles to build a house when there's a perfectly good stand of trees right there in the lot.

If we're talking about cities in terms of high population centers (as opposed to calling a dozen thatch huts arrayed around a well a "city"), then likely they just don't have room to spare for big green zones. Medieval cities tend to start out as a small fortification, then when it gets filled to capacity, folks start building outside the fortification. Then eventually a wall gets built around that expansion, and when that confined space fills up, the process repeats.

 

[Felon]

Which is fine, until someone shows up to your game, really excited about their new urban druid character idea. Then you have two choices:

1. Shoot down their idea in flames.
2. Allow a character you don't believe makes sense.

Actuallly, there's another choice: tell them that the urban druid variant isn't allowed, but do so in a way that isn't melodramatically "shooting them down in flames". Hypothetical problem resolved.

 

[adwyn]

If we're talking about cities in terms of high population centers (as opposed to calling a dozen thatch huts arrayed around a well a "city"), then likely they just don't have room to spare for big green zones. Medieval cities tend to start out as a small fortification, then when it gets filled to capacity, folks start building outside the fortification. Then eventually a wall gets built around that expansion, and when that confined space fills up, the process repeats.

Rare is the fantasy city map that illustrates this. Most look just like modern suburbs except that there is an immense city wall that stretches for miles around the city with no care to the cost of building it, maintaining it, or of manning it.

 

[3catcircus]

Has anyone picked it up yet and taken a look at the content? Curious to see how useful it is before shelling out the cash.

Thumbed through it at my FLGS - and promptly put it back on the shelf. In one word - underwhelming. I'll take MMS:WE over this any day.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Well, you don't live in a pseudo-medieval city. You live in a modern city where people will haul lumber in a truck for miles to build a house when there's a perfectly good stand of trees right there in the lot.

The city core is undoubtedly medieval. In fact, the foundations date back all the way to Roman times. And we don't use much wood for building houses, other than the roof - most of it is brick and stone.

Are you American? If so, it might be of interest to you that the whole philosophy of city design and growth is rather different here - making much more use of the local environment than simply raising up yet another cookie-cutter neighborhood, and building the city around more than just the cars.

If we're talking about cities in terms of high population centers (as opposed to calling a dozen thatch huts arrayed around a well a "city"), then likely they just don't have room to spare for big green zones. Medieval cities tend to start out as a small fortification, then when it gets filled to capacity, folks start building outside the fortification. Then eventually a wall gets built around that expansion, and when that confined space fills up, the process repeats.

Why are you so stuck on medieval European cities? Parks have been parts of cities for ages - long before cities rose to prominence in Central Europe in medieval times. And that's just the real world - there are numerous more examples in fantasy that incorporate living things into city design. Why is it inconceivable that some druid took a look at cities with parklands and thought to himself: "Hey, this mixture of buildings and plants looks interesting. Perhaps with the right guidance, cities might actually work as an environment!"?

This sounds more interesting to me than having druids as, say, unkempt terrorists who simply want urban civilization to come crashing down. YMMV.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Thumbed through it at my FLGS - and promptly put it back on the shelf. In one word - underwhelming. I'll take MMS:WE over this any day.

Does it cover the same ground, or is it complimentary?