D&D General How do you run Town Exploration in your games.

[bedir than]

Things my current campaign has done, all in a single city;

• Search a library for a specific book
• Protect the mayor from an assassination
• repel some dragons that wanted to take over a park
• establish a base of operations
• fight a rival thieves guild
• explore the sewers
• a simultaneous chase of an escaping noble with a rival party that ended in a dungeon of illusions
• a fetch quest for the tree sap that lets the printing press run
• fought the town guard
• helped the town guard repel an invasion

There's plenty of stuff to do in urban environments without ever doing the misnamed Downtime

 

[Quickleaf]

Thats my point really, its hard to create content if there isnt a decent way to get players to reliably interact with it, leads to awkward lulls, luckily its easy to fix by just giving players a general reference of available activities or actions in a town, and the rest leaves itself. Thats how i handle it, or just give the PC's a list of locations off the jump really, but i find it curious how many people have different ways of handling it

I ran about 5 sessions in a pseudo-Ancient Egyptian fantasy city recently. There was lots of adventure happening that kept players involved and exploring new areas, from the illegal auction house / fighting ring, to tenement housing to save a boy from an invisible demon, to the temple of Osiris with its giant talking ibis, to a farm haunted by a quasit just outside the walls, to an investigation / tracking scene at the docks, to a tense negotiation at a legatus' embassy / home, etc.

Many of these scenes/locations involved (a) an unexpected revelation putting past events or discoveries into perspective, (b) a discovery or connection to a PC's backstory, or (c) a surprise twist on a classic trope or cliche to keep my players guessing.

All of them involved a strong goal for the players, from "locate the magic scarab being auctioned" to "break into the lead investigator's house to learn what is really motivating her."

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Given the near infinite possibilities of adventures that can take place outside of towns

Wut? Kicking down doors, killing monsters and stealing their stuff gets old real quick!

 

[iserith]

Wut? Kicking down doors, killing monsters and stealing their stuff gets old real quick!

I suppose that depends on how the DM structures and presents adventures and what the players decide to do. There's an awful lot of social interaction and exploration that goes on in my games outside of towns! Towns aren't the only place for that sort of play.

 

[Lanefan]

The one thing to note regarding city or town adventuring is that it's far more likely the PCs will split up or even scatter in order to try and do more than one thing at a time; and both you-as-DM and the players need to be ready for and accepting of this splitting.

An example where a party is looking into a sudden increase in dangerous herbs in town might go - after much discussion, the party mage sums up plans thusly: "Falstaff, see what you can find out from the mercenaries' guild - any rumours or buzz as to what's going on - then round us up some dark clothing and ropes. Towheer, run surveillance on the apothecary we've been watching and while you're at it try to find out if anyone else is watching it. Clerister, find out what you can about the laws here regarding herb production, use, and enchantment; and just how many toes we'd be stepping on if we bust up that apothecary. I'm going to hit the mages' guild; I want to find out if anyone there has been helping enchant any of these herbs and at the same time there's a new spell I want to pick up. Henchwidget, your job today is to stay in our hotel room and act as a communication link; we'll all leave messages with you as to what we find and-or where we are. Let's meet back at the hotel at sundown in any case."

Having the whole party involved in each of these tasks makes no sense, particularly if the surveillance is to be continuous.

 

[tetrasodium]

The one thing to note regarding city or town adventuring is that it's far more likely the PCs will split up or even scatter in order to try and do more than one thing at a time; and both you-as-DM and the players need to be ready for and accepting of this splitting.

An example where a party is looking into a sudden increase in dangerous herbs in town might go - after much discussion, the party mage sums up plans thusly: "Falstaff, see what you can find out from the mercenaries' guild - any rumours or buzz as to what's going on - then round us up some dark clothing and ropes. Towheer, run surveillance on the apothecary we've been watching and while you're at it try to find out if anyone else is watching it. Clerister, find out what you can about the laws here regarding herb production, use, and enchantment; and just how many toes we'd be stepping on if we bust up that apothecary. I'm going to hit the mages' guild; I want to find out if anyone there has been helping enchant any of these herbs and at the same time there's a new spell I want to pick up. Henchwidget, your job today is to stay in our hotel room and act as a communication link; we'll all leave messages with you as to what we find and-or where we are. Let's meet back at the hotel at sundown in any case."

Having the whole party involved in each of these tasks makes no sense, particularly if the surveillance is to be continuous.

I'd add that the gm shouldn't hesitate to shut down players who want to simultaneously join everyone who splits in a different direction by remaining passively silent with words like "you are not with him bob" when bob wants to spring from hammerspace to join Alice the moment she has trouble.

 

[Shiroiken]

In town adventures are different than downtime. Entering a new town is its own adventure, for at least that session. Downtime in towns is just bookkeeping, ideally done away from the session. My players know if I'm roleplaying something out in a familiar town, I'm setting up the adventure.

You've never been a tourist???

Not the person you replied to, but not really. When I go somewhere, I have a destination and activity in mind, and I pretty much stick to it. When I go to conventions, I'm not out exploring Indianapolis or Columbus, but I'm at Gen Con or Origins. At most I'm exploring the immediate area for somewhere to eat (yes, it's usually a chain restaurant). The only time I can recall being a tourist was a washout during a beach vacation in North Carolina, where I spent a few hours visiting some Revolutionary War historical sites.

 

[Hriston]

Was just a random thought I had running and playing DnD, is that every DM has their own method, but it never feels quite good, like there is this weird hole in the game about how to actually convey the feel of moving and discovering a town or settlement. I know some simply just let the players what do they did and they find a store for it, some who do town guides, or some that run them as odd point crawls but none feel quite right, what do you do in your games? How would you solve this issue? Is it even a issue to solve?

Settlements in my games primarily serve the function of providing a home base -- a place to rest and resupply. Settlements greater than about 500 people will have all the standard goods and services available in a central marketplace. Settlements bigger than around 1,250 (the smallest towns) start to have an urban character and may be divided into multiple wards mostly controlled by different guilds with different occupational specializations. When the PCs travel through an unmapped area of a large town or city, I roll on an urban encounter table to determine the character of the ward through which they are traveling. For example, if the encounter is some tradesmen, then I roll on a table of different trades to determine which guild controls the ward, or if the encounter is with undead, then they're in the mortuary district. The encounters themselves will only happen if a random encounter roll indicates they do, but I describe the ward they're passing through and then check for an encounter every ten minutes of movement. I make the wards take about five minutes to cross, so that moving into an adjacent ward doesn't risk a random encounter, but traversing through an adjacent ward to get to one on the other side does.

 

[DND_Reborn]

When I go somewhere, I have a destination and activity in mind, and I pretty much stick to it.

Only because with modern technology you know where you are going.

Now, imagine you are going someplace with no map, no clue of what is there, with only a vague idea of a possible destination you might have heard from a fellow traveler, if that? How do you get around?

When I go to conventions, I'm not out exploring Indianapolis or Columbus, but I'm at Gen Con or Origins.

But even in going around the convention it is like exploring a mini town.

At most I'm exploring the immediate area for somewhere to eat (yes, it's usually a chain restaurant).

And how do you find it? Wander around, use your phone? Again, without technology your experience would be forced to be different in all likelihood.

 

[Scott Christian]

I know some simply just let the players what do they did and they find a store for it, some who do town guides, or some that run them as odd point crawls but none feel quite right, what do you do in your games? How would you solve this issue? Is it even a issue to solve?

Depends on the group and game type I am running.

My more adventure path style games have very specific scenarios. They generally highlight the town's most common attributes) many times over), introduce specific NPCs that move the story forward, and account for setting pieces that move the story forward.

The more sandbox the game, the more open it is. I still write down and have descriptions of each major shop type and the NPCs that own them. I also still have the movers and shakers of the town is specific areas, as well as communal areas for finding quests. But, when the PCs enter, it is a more explore what you want.