D&D 5E How do you use cities in your campaigns?

[atanakar]

How do you use cities in your campaigns?

I try to vary the pleasures in my campaigns. I find urban adventures more challenging to create. For my current campaign, I created two urban adventures on a total of 12 sessions. One was kidnapping mystery and the other was an invasion by enemy forces.

 

[Salthorae]

I do a lot of city-based things, but also send them out from cities as bases of operations

 

[iserith]

Towns and cities can have the effect of bogging down gameplay in mundane concerns that don't support the vision of the game as bold adventurers confronting deadly perils. Cue the shopping scenes, hanging out in taverns posturing among other PCs, and the endless interviewing of cagey, quirky NPCs.

So I'm very careful that I keep the action in a city-based adventure pretty tight and short-lived so that we don't fall into the trap of playing out the fantasy equivalent of running errands with a spouse on a weekend. There's enough of that drudgery in real life. I don't need it in my fantasy game.

Typically I use towns and cities as a safe haven for rest and resupply before the adventurers get back out to adventure in the vast wilderness filled with forgotten places. It's rare that I run a city adventure. If I do, it's because the campaign involves an iconic city like Sigil in Planescape or Sharn in Eberron. But that's about it. All other towns and cities are a means to an end.

 

[Michael Silverbane]

Almost everything in the campaigns that I run tends to happen in (or over, or under) a city. More or less rarely, (depending on the campaign) that city is inhabited only by the ghosts or guardians of a long-lost civilization.

 

[Fenris-77]

I have a lot of hacks and subsystems for running urban play. The downtime rules aren't robust enough for my tastes, and it takes to long to actively roleplay out every little part of, say, a heist. I borrow a lot of concepts from Blades and some other stuff about skill challenges, plus expanded downtime rules. All of which I'm still tinkering with, as well as a reputation system.

 

[Oofta]

I originally voted that my campaigns are city based, but changed to running urban campaigns regularly but even that's not quite right. Almost all campaigns start and, at lower levels, are city based. But higher levels (around level 8 or above) the PC's sphere of influence is changing and they're likely to venture far and wide. Even at lower levels, they may venture out for a variety of encounters and challenges.

At lower levels for me cities combine all the aspects I need for most of my campaign. Multiple groups with conflicting goals and desires, mysteries to solve, monsters to slay.

As far as "shopping and hanging out in taverns" being a problem, I have no clue what that means. If the group enjoys those aspects, great. If they don't we'll hand wave most of that. I don't see why urban based campaigns would influence it one way or another.

 

[David Howery]

hardly ever used city based adventures.... usually had the town/city as the place to heal up and sell/buy stuff. All the dungeons and wilderness adventures were way out in the boonies....

 

[prabe]

Towns and cities can have the effect of bogging down gameplay in mundane concerns that don't support the vision of the game as bold adventurers confronting deadly perils. Cue the shopping scenes, hanging out in taverns posturing among other PCs, and the endless interviewing of cagey, quirky NPCs.

So I'm very careful that I keep the action in a city-based adventure pretty tight and short-lived so that we don't fall into the trap of playing out the fantasy equivalent of running errands with a spouse on a weekend. There's enough of that drudgery in real life. I don't need it in my fantasy game.

Typically I use towns and cities as a safe haven for rest and resupply before the adventurers get back out to adventure in the vast wilderness filled with forgotten places. It's rare that I run a city adventure. If I do, it's because the campaign involves an iconic city like Sigil in Planescape or Sharn in Eberron. But that's about it. All other towns and cities are a means to an end.

I'm not sure "executing a vendetta against (part of) the group that destroyed [character's] village" or "trying to untangle a deal the city elders made decades ago with [an ancient power]" or "interrupting the work of a [bad guy] looking to flood the city with undead" can fairly be described as "mundane concerns" or "bogging down gameplay" or "drudgery." All those things have happened in cities, in a campaign I'm running. If you don't need those things, you're not obligated to have them, but how about not (seeming to be) writing off campaigns that are different from yours, eh?

 

[iserith]

I'm not sure "executing a vendetta against (part of) the group that destroyed [character's] village" or "trying to untangle a deal the city elders made decades ago with [an ancient power]" or "interrupting the work of a [bad guy] looking to flood the city with undead" can fairly be described as "mundane concerns" or "bogging down gameplay" or "drudgery." All those things have happened in cities, in a campaign I'm running. If you don't need those things, you're not obligated to have them, but how about not (seeming to be) writing off campaigns that are different from yours, eh?

My preference has no bearing on your campaign or anybody else's.

 

[Oofta]

I'm not sure "executing a vendetta against (part of) the group that destroyed [character's] village" or "trying to untangle a deal the city elders made decades ago with [an ancient power]" or "interrupting the work of a [bad guy] looking to flood the city with undead" can fairly be described as "mundane concerns" or "bogging down gameplay" or "drudgery." All those things have happened in cities, in a campaign I'm running. If you don't need those things, you're not obligated to have them, but how about not (seeming to be) writing off campaigns that are different from yours, eh?

Yeah, boring campaigns will be boring whatever the setting. What works for one group is not going to work for another.