Getting a city campaign started

RichGreen

Adventurer
Hi,

I'm currently working on a city campaign, set in the city of Parsantium and was wondering whether it's better to have the PCs be residents of the city or turn up at the gates, maybe as caravan guards or unemployed adventurers in search of their fortune. What are the pros and cons of each, and which works best?

Cheers


Richard
 

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In my city based campiagn 3 out of 6 PC's were born in the city, the other 3 are new to the city (though one is from the same region)

of the three newcomers the 2 priests have temple affiliations & the wizard is in the arcane guild giving them affiliations within the city.

From a DM perspective, making the PC's 'locals' is more effort initially as you have to get some background sorted for them (though you've done a lot of work already i see - looks interesting btw), but makes the campaign run much more smoothly in the long term as it is much easier to hook PC's in and force them to follow at least some laws rather than firebombing the town and then leaving the city....

My prequel to the campaign had the party travelling (back) to the city as a group and taking a shortcut & adventure in the countryside. Time passed and the group had become friends and were ready to start the adventure proper in the city.

so pro's of residency

gives depth to campaign
gives depth to PC's
allows background knowledge ('You know that this lord is notoriously corrupt...')
gives family / friends / home / allies that can act as plot hooks (though resist the temptation to capture a member of the family every time the BBEG needs a hostage)
allows membership of guilds / temples

con's


PC's may not like having all the vulnerabilities associated with a back-story, especially if the DM abuses it
More work for the ref
PC's may abuse the affiliations (I call in some favours and turn up with 40 beggars for the fight)
need some backstory from the start that may restrict future actions
if the affiliations have restrictions then dropping everything to go adventuring might strain credibility

pro's for outsiders

everything is new so the DM can slow release the background as and when required
the PC's are outsiders so will be easily enough to drag them into stories by offering them money
players can slowly develop their background rather than needing a lot up front

Con's

how to stop the PC's from just leaving the city when the going gets tough and coming back later? (we have this problem in the cauldron campaign to a certain extent)
how to make the PC's care about what happens in the city
 
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Partially inspired by your brainstorming thread, Rich, I've also started a low-lvl city campaign set in Privateer Press's pirate city Five Fingers. I decided to go the route of making the PCs live in the city. I wanted them established, with a real fondness for the city and its inhabitants.

How to do this? I made them live in a small, sort of out-of-the-way neighborhood. This way they know a lot about their local neighborhood, and people know them as well. They walk down the street and folks greet them, and they know shortcuts and local lore. People are willing to stick up for them. In game terms, I vastly lower the DCs for knowledge (local) and Gather Info if it applies to their neighborhood.

Outside of this neighborhood, though, the DCs go back to normal and they get no real advantage. I'm able to mix threats and adventures that take them out of their familiar stomping grounds, and then back in again. It's really working well so far.

Incidentally, I blatantly stole the feel for this setup from the Garth Ennis comic book "Hitman." In it, Tommy Monaghan lives in the worst slum in Gotham, but he has good friends and everyone knows one another. That feeling of safety, of being on your own home turf but not knowing the rest of the city as well, is something that I really liked when I first read it.
 

In the beginning of Death in Freeport the PC's, whether or not they know each other (although they travelled to Freeport on the same ship), are attacked by a press gang. Actually, my preferred start to every session is *roll for initiative* but ymmv.
 

Piratecat said:
How to do this? I made them live in a small, sort of out-of-the-way neighborhood. This way they know a lot about their local neighborhood, and people know them as well. They walk down the street and folks greet them, and they know shortcuts and local lore. People are willing to stick up for them. In game terms, I vastly lower the DCs for knowledge (local) and Gather Info if it applies to their neighborhood.

I was thinking about doing this, maybe using the boat town of Flotsam (post #80 on the Parsantium thread as the starting point. The PCs could be originally from the city or outsiders and will need to come up with a background explaining why they are living among the very poor on a houseboat!

Cheers


Richard
 

Phlebas said:
In my city based campiagn 3 out of 6 PC's were born in the city, the other 3 are new to the city (though one is from the same region)

of the three newcomers the 2 priests have temple affiliations & the wizard is in the arcane guild giving them affiliations within the city.

From a DM perspective, making the PC's 'locals' is more effort initially as you have to get some background sorted for them (though you've done a lot of work already i see - looks interesting btw), but makes the campaign run much more smoothly in the long term as it is much easier to hook PC's in and force them to follow at least some laws rather than firebombing the town and then leaving the city....

My prequel to the campaign had the party travelling (back) to the city as a group and taking a shortcut & adventure in the countryside. Time passed and the group had become friends and were ready to start the adventure proper in the city.

I like the way you started off your campaign. Good summary of the pros and cons too. Thanks!


Richard
 

I ran into trouble with my intended city campaign (City State of the Invincible Overlord) when I had most of the PCs be strangers in the city. One of the players decided their backstory meant they should leave and not come back, so now I'm running a wilderness campaign!
 

RichGreen said:
I like the way you started off your campaign......

thanks - the players seemed to appreciate it as a gentle way in and it meant we hit the campaign proper with the group already used to working together

RichGreen said:
I was thinking about doing this, maybe using the boat town of Flotsam (post #80 on the Parsantium thread as the starting point. The PCs could be originally from the city or outsiders and will need to come up with a background explaining why they are living among the very poor on a houseboat!

I used the poorest section of the city as the base area as well (wish i'd thought of the floating town myself.....) The only issue i had with with one PC who was a temple guard and so lived in the main temple - so she ended up being in charge of a local shrine to make her a regular at 'The Snoring Fool' where the other party members hung out.
 

whether it's better to have the PCs be residents of the city or turn up at the gates

There is no best, just what works best for the PCs & players in question. If your players have well-written backgrounds, those will tell you what options you might want to consider. A PC who is a forest-dwelling xenophobe won't work well as a city local, but might work as an outsider forced into the city for some specific reason.

And, as indicated, its quite possible to mix outsiders & locals, as long as you have a good reason to.

One of the best city campaign startups I ever did (according to my players) was a dynamic cascading intro tailored to the individual PC backgrounds.

I started with a mini-solo adventure for one player- the (local) thief- who made it to his goal (a valuable statue on the 2nd floor) without a hitch...until he triggered a trapdoor that dropped him into the sewers.

As he made splashdown, he startled a pair of thugs who were kidnapping a wizard (outsider) they had bound in a sackcloth bag, just as they were placing her into a sewer raft. Her pleas for help got the thief to rescue her.

Eventually, they found a way out of the sewer into the basement of a tavern. They cleaned themselves off and emerged from the cellar into the tavern's main room. Before they could make it out the door, a brawl broke out- someone at the (local) Fighter's table was cheating at dominoes. The imminent arrival of the Watch drove the (future) party out the back door and into the city's back streets...

And so forth.
 

S'mon said:
I ran into trouble with my intended city campaign (City State of the Invincible Overlord) when I had most of the PCs be strangers in the city. One of the players decided their backstory meant they should leave and not come back, so now I'm running a wilderness campaign!
I seem to remember Monte Cook saying that the metagame rule for the Ptolus campaign was that it would be entirely set within the city and the players should keep their characters there. I'm planning on being a bit more flexible than this, although I don't want to end up running a campaign set wholly outside Parsantium. Sounds like I'll need to go through the PC backgrounds very carefully!


Richard
 

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