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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Noumenon" data-source="post: 5133189" data-attributes="member: 70102">One clarifying question for anyone who actually played Castle Whiterock: what percent of your time do you think you spent in Cillamar as opposed to the dungeon?  Maybe I should post that as a poll.So Star Wars does way more work than a DM would in characterizing people who won't ever come on stage, and Cillamar does the work so I can have that too.  But how do I use it?  I guess when someone goes into a bar, instead of saying "You go into a bar," I can say "You go into a bar, the lowered pit in the corner has a show performed by <detailed local NPC #1> and you accidentally bump into <detailed NPC #2> and spill his drink."  This is like Monte Cook's approach in Ptolus where you'd have three "man on the street" encounters in each district in case you wanted to add something to a scene. But that's not what you're saying, you're saying I should pre-pick 10 NPCs and let the rest stay fuzzed out.  It seems kind of like only using 1 in 5 combat encounters out of a module, I haven't got over that.  Maybe what I should do is pick 5 NPCs per session, linked to the kind of things the PCs are going to be doing, and focus on them.  And then I will pick the 1 or 2 that the players had the most fun with, and make them recur.  That way I would get the benefit out of the variety, and not be overwhelmed with detail in a particular session.Getting a writ strikes me as a very tangible way of making the players feel like they've become bigger fish over time.  I'm definitely going to use that.  And from all the adventure hooks you give, I almost think the fact that the Gazetteer didn't mention any of them means it must have had another purpose in mind -- just creating some roleplaying opportunities or background.  I'll use the tax collection as a transition zone to pass on news about what's new in the city and establish a familiar routine instead of making it a significant monetary hit that the players will try to avoid.  Kind of like going through customs where it's just good to hear someone speak English again.  So not like a dungeon with 1000 doors.  But the reason you don't care about what's going on in East Dovedale is because it's physically too far away for you to affect it or hear about it.  To make the city like that, I need to put some metaphorical "distance" between building C-3 on the east side and tower F-4 on the west side.  I could have super crowded streets, traffic stops, and random encounters to slightly discourage people from gallivanting all over my tiny world map.</blockquote>

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