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

[ctorus]

I show them the map and ask where they want to go. Then I describe the journey through the streets as they go there. Sometimes I start with a lower resolution map and reveal the high-res one underneath as they move. I do the same for wilderness exploration.

 

[FallenRX]

"Not much to do" (when not working the fields) is a typical village issue, which is why adventurers leave. The main downtime activity is sitting in the tavern drinking warm beer. Note: there are a lot of traditional pub games your players could engage the locals in if you have a taste for minigames.

Traditional pub games

That link doesn't mention darts, which is easy to do with D&D rules. If it's summer there may also be archery on the green. If it's a pirate tavern they probably throw axes instead. The villagers may be keen to draft adventurers into a football team to play against a rival village. Medieval football - Wikipedia

I meant more, players dont really have a reference of what they can do to really interact with towns really. Its kinda strange

 

[cavetroll]

I meant more, players dont really have a reference of what they can do to really interact with towns really. Its kinda strange

How do you interact with a new town? Well you go to a town for a reason right, you have plans, perhaps lodging, shopping, visit any places of interest. For the players it would be the same. Usually as the DM you would give them options as to where to stay, names of inns, taverns and then create an encounter there if you plan on kicking off a side or main quest. If they are just passing through on their way there is no need to roleplay/explore every town if you have nothing interesting planned.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I meant more, players dont really have a reference of what they can do to really interact with towns really. Its kinda strange

They don't "have a reference" for what they can do if they attend a ball either. That's because it's the DM's job to create content, not the rules. You can find plenty of exemplar material in published adventures though.

A town can be as big or as small a deal as you want to make it.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

It actually has never occurred to me that town could be explored.

Your typical pseudo-medieval town would be very small by modern standards, and wouldn't have much too explore. The main buildings would be clustered around a single road, square or green, and all visible at once. If it has any kind of map to explore it's really more a city/urban exploration site.

 

[FallenRX]

They don't "have a reference" for what they can do if they attend a ball either. That's because it's the DM's job to create content, not the rules. You can find plenty of exemplar material in published adventures though.

A town can be as big or as small a deal as you want to make it.

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

 

[DND_Reborn]

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?

I ran an entire game in and around (within 20 miles of) one city. 90% of the adventures took place directly in the city.

Now, this wasn't exploration for the characters so much (most of them were from the city), but it was for the players of course, and their characters did explore and discover places they might have heard of but never went to before. Because the different characters were more familiar with different parts of the city, I gave them area maps and background information, and in a sense at times those characters "guided" the rest of the party through different sections.

First, I think this is the hardest type of campaign/game to run, but we managed to make it work. Of course, you need to develop A LOT of npcs for the players to interact with and the more you develop the feel of the city (population, laws, customs, festivals, gods, etc.) the more rewarding the adventures will be.

Otherwise, in general, the players have to want to explore the town or settlement, learn about what is going on, interact with the NPCs. When I ran Frostmaiden, exploring Ten Towns (the towns themselves as well as the regions around them) was fun but the players have to want to do it.

 

[DND_Reborn]

It actually has never occurred to me that town could be explored.

You've never been a tourist???

 

[Yora]

Well yes, but looking at things is a very different thing from having the GM describe how things look. Sight seeing is not gameplay. You need interactivity to have play.

 

[Oofta]

What's the narrative purpose of the town? Is it just a pit stop? There's not much to explore, I'll likely just sum it up with the rest of the narration of a journey. There may be points when we get into details for one reason or another, mostly because I want to establish the mood or setting.

Most of my campaigns are urban based, I just find them more interesting. Exploring a city is twofold. First, there's the general look and feel of the city. Is the city surrounded by forest? Buildings are timber, likely with wooden shingles. Middle of the desert? Adobe, brick or stone walls with tile or slate roofs. Shoddy and rundown or prosperous? Perhaps it was once prosperous but now the paint is fading? These kind of things can tell you things visually. Add in a general feel of the populace. Are they happy and cheerful, greeting each other on the street? Are the streets bustling or nearly empty as people peer from behind shutters before they slam them shut when they notice you looking? What are the people dressed like?

Then it's a question of discovery, finding out specifics and details. I will often break larger cities (more than a few hundred is historically a city) up into districts, each with common threads but different feel. Base the NPCs, businesses and attitudes you'll find in the different districts. I'll also have a pre-generated list of names for businesses of various kinds and NPCs. Part of the fun of being in an urban adventure is that there are so many possibilities.

You can also have just about any kind of monster in a city that you can hit anywhere else. You probably aren't going to encounter an orcish army, but PCs don't really interact with armies. On the other hand if you want an encounter with a dragon, maybe the dragon is threatening to attack the city if it doesn't receive it's tithe or the guy running the apothecary is a polymorphed dragon. The options are nearly endless.

So that's how I handle it. Sometimes towns are just where you stop for supplies and a place to eat. Sometimes they're the focus of the campaign because for me urban encounters are far more interesting than going to yet another set of ruins kicking in doors.