Has anyone thought of doing a Supplement for Adventuring, Urban Style

[Sidran]

I am talking about a book that helps a DM, by listing the types of businesses, people, monsters, Adventure settings ( Theives guild war, Sewer running, Political intrigues) that are able to be found in different cities, and porttowns. With suggestions on how to work them into an adventure. Perhaps with some plots and Places premade to slip into a homebrewed campaign.

The book could have the history of some Medieval cities, or such and a few Fantasy cities to boot.

I don't know what else could be put in but perhaps

a series of <Insert Class> Urban Adventurers

For example

Barbarians as Urban Adventurers
From the wild regions of the world the Barbarian adventurer wanders from time to time into the civilized streets. Surviving here on their own can be a dangerous adventure in its own right.
Finding jobs as Bouncers, Sell swords, and Laborers the Barbarian adventurer fits himself into the educated underworld as a ruffian or hitman, an extortioner, or a Tax collector using his brute strenght and his Intimidating physical stature to bully the soft southerners.

Fighters as Urban Adventurers.


Rogues as Urban Adventurers....and so on

With some feats, and new skills, and equipment added to fill out the needs of the city life.

Another thing I would like to see in it is rules for Markets, and Bazaars, Trade Auctions, and trading in general. (like availability) Odd equipment that has little practical adventurer use , but is their mostly to flush out the world. ( for this part perhaps the book could go through different historical market types such as the Medieval fairs, the Arabic Bazaars, the greek Agora, and talk about such things as slavery in a fantasy culture.)

Anyway throwing out the Idea to the general population to see what it gives back.

 

[Lady Dragon]

Canting Crew has some of what your looking for.

 

[CBS Brian]

Urban Adventuring

Actually I wrote up four prestige classes for Dragon magazine, all of them centered on the idea of urban adventuring. The charlatan, the marshal, the fence, and the infiltrator, all really cool classes.

Unfortunately Dragon changed their minds about publishing, I think they cancelled their plans for an urban issue any time soon. Anyways, if any publishing are doing a city supplement and are interested in them, drop me a line.

 

[MEG Hal]

Mystic Eye Games has Bluffside: City on the Edge with a lot of information and plot hooks for the city as well as a book of places called Urban Blight which has unique places for any urban setting, Doug, Jim and I are working on placing some of the Urban Blight places officially in Bluffside for ease to the GM....hope that helps.

In 2003 Bluffside will also have expansions and adventures geared around urban themes.

 

[Krug]

Looks like we're getting out of the deep dungeon and onto the mean streets! Har Har har!

 

[Brian K. Moseley]

This September will see the release of Darkfuries' seaport of Visira, City of Sorrows.

"Haven to the vile, the wicked, and the amoral. Thick with the stench of blood and decay. Where gold can buy anything, and life has the least value of all..."

Visira will contain libraries of maps and floorplans, (five separate city levels alone), and a wealth of information on establishments, organizations, people, and the various areas of the city. The City Sourcebook will be closely followed with expansion supplements, each detailing one of the city's seven districts:

October 2002 - Visira: Huckster's Sprawl - From Haggler's Row to Slaves' March stretches a dangerous maze of merchant shops and street vendors, and all answer to the powers that run the Sprawl.

January 2003 - Visira: Arena's Hold - From the bloody earth of the fighting pits to sunbaked center of the gladiator's arena, the way of the warrior rules the Hold.

More information about Darkfuries' highly-detailed Fantasy Floorplans Sourcebooks and the upcoming Visira series available at
darkfuries.com

Hope this helps!

 

[Lizard]

I am talking about a book that helps a DM, by listing the types of businesses, people, monsters, Adventure settings ( Theives guild war, Sewer running, Political intrigues) that are able to be found in different cities, and porttowns. With suggestions on how to work them into an adventure. Perhaps with some plots and Places premade to slip into a homebrewed campaign.

The book could have the history of some Medieval cities, or such and a few Fantasy cities to boot.

I don't know what else could be put in but perhaps

a series of <Insert Class> Urban Adventurers

For example

Barbarians as Urban Adventurers
From the wild regions of the world the Barbarian adventurer wanders from time to time into the civilized streets. Surviving here on their own can be a dangerous adventure in its own right.
Finding jobs as Bouncers, Sell swords, and Laborers the Barbarian adventurer fits himself into the educated underworld as a ruffian or hitman, an extortioner, or a Tax collector using his brute strenght and his Intimidating physical stature to bully the soft southerners.

Have you been hacking my system?

The forthcoming Cities:Born in Stone from Otherworld creations, written by, ahem, me, includes pretty much *exactly* that. Notes on the standard races and classes in the city. Markets and coinage. Rarity of items. LOTS of 'new uses for old skills' in the urban environment. History of cities, from Sumer to the distant future. Formulas for determining how much farmland you need to support that ubercity of 1 million people. Spells. Rules for combat in narrow alleys or on ledges above the crowded streets. "And much, much, more!"

Sorry for the utterly shameless plug, but I see every OTHER reply is also a plug, and this IS the industry forum, so....

 

[Sidran]

Re: Re: Has anyone thought of doing a Supplement for Adventuring, Urban Style

Have you been hacking my system?

The forthcoming Cities:Born in Stone from Otherworld creations, written by, ahem, me, includes pretty much *exactly* that. Notes on the standard races and classes in the city. Markets and coinage. Rarity of items. LOTS of 'new uses for old skills' in the urban environment. History of cities, from Sumer to the distant future. Formulas for determining how much farmland you need to support that ubercity of 1 million people. Spells. Rules for combat in narrow alleys or on ledges above the crowded streets. "And much, much, more!"

Sorry for the utterly shameless plug, but I see every OTHER reply is also a plug, and this IS the industry forum, so....

I want I want I want drooling myself to oblivion.

Will the rules include rules for the markets. I dunno how many times my players say they go and check the bazaar, and then start asking for things like rare books on ancient lore or Atlasses of the world from two to three hundred years before. ( My players tend to think smart about archives, and the such when looking for adventurers. I have indeed used this game trait of theirs to my advantage throwing out plot hooks in the folded pages of some dusty old book on one subject or another. But rules for generating market place junk would be nice. I have at times tricked my players into looking for magical items in produce markets like a farmers fair. They didnt think it was funny until they got to that old rummage dealers stall and found a non magical dagger that would take them on a quest most of the way around the world where they were nearly beheaded for owning it. ( It was a month long campaign in which I introduced the first baddie to be named Arthordan Thorne, who in his fervor to serve Pelor was stepping on his peoples feet. It turned out wierd cuz the next time I played instead of DMing I ran up against his son Aarian Thorne who fourty five years after the orriginal campaign wound up toppling his father, and his two brothers, and bringing his wife back from the dead as a vampire queen.) Anyway I degressed badly. It would be really nice to see rules that help me create fluff for my players to look at instead of randomly rolling the dice and then pretending to calculate what the dice rule generated, saying something to the effect of " Ummm yeah in behind a rusted out breastplate you find a stack of books. Most of 'um are junk tales of half drunken bards, bur one at the bottom is titled 'The magical uses of the common fly'." It works but shoddily.

Have you been hacking my system?

nope not me officer [shuffling my incriminating evidence of psionic tampering into the proverbial shredder ]

 

[Lizard]

Re: Re: Re: Has anyone thought of doing a Supplement for Adventuring, Urban Style

I want I want I want drooling myself to oblivion.

Will include the rules for the markets. I dunno how many times my players say the go and check the bazaar, and then start asking for things like rare books on ancient lore to Atlases of the world from two to three hundred years before..

There is a 'Rarity' score which can be assigned to things, with modifiers based on the age of the item and the nature of both the city and the local neighborhood in the city. For example, if a city is rich in magic, and you're in a neighborhood near a wizard's guild, you have a better chance of finding Ye Olde Booke of Forbidden Lore than if you're in a small town where wizards are killed on sight. There's also modifiers for the quality of the shop (higher quality==better selection) and the size of the city (Imperial capitals have a lot more stuff than small farming towns).

Oh yeah -- if the players have just wandered into a town which you have only as a name on a map, and they want to know "Is there a/n _____?" (Armorer, Jeweler, Bookstore, etc) there's a quick way to find out if there is, if there's more than one, and how good they are.

 

[Sidran]

Its the items that I struggle with not the shops.

I am good at creating Hodgewaith's such in such Shop

Its the items that a town might have.

Like when you go to the flea market

You may find

A Vintage guitar, a stack of 1958 playboys, an old wholey pair of jeans, some wretchedly bad conditioned D&D books, or a Fine quality first edition Call of the Wild.

I would love at least a list of some of the things one might have found in a Medeival market. Like hand crafted furniture, shoes, fine linens, brass, and wood buttons. that sort of thing. And the stuff you would find in the wizards Junk pile to such as a few things I created like the Ring of Seamanship, useful for those characters that get seasick on any thing larger than a ferry. or the Spectacles of seeing wow once blind but now can see. A typical magical utility item for old aged characters that just haven't learned to retire to the Adventurers old persons home yet.