Indie RPG Newsletter: Cities in RPGs

[Bedrockgames]

@Grendel_Khan


I don't think I find it to be social commentary. Which still probably comes across as more disagreeable than I want it to. I guess what I mean is that I don't feel it's commentary until it shows the social situation in a certain light. Most RPGs present oligarchies as a normal mode of government, and the players aren't expected to have their PCs do anything about it. Is this one different?

This is an interesting question. Does commentary need to be explicit in this case? And can being explicit in the commentary weaken it?

As an example, I used to read a lot of Roman Murder Mysteries. And Rome was powered by human slavery. Some books emphasized this more than others. Personally the ones I found most impactful were ones where it was just depicted as the norm, and the characters didn't react to it (it is just a little more horrifying to think of something like that as the normal every day part of life: how they powered their society). Whereas one of my favorite series, the Roma Sub Rosa, which I highly recommend because its great overall, highlighted the use of slavery and had the character react to it strongly. He wasn't in a position of enough power to change anything, but as a reader you understood the author's position through the character. However I felt this was less impactful on me than stories where it's just the norm. I'm not sure there is a best way to do things as people probably will have very different reactions, and some of this might be my history background where just showing how something functions and leaving me to form my own conclusions is enough (and the fact that it is being presented as a normal, everyday, way of life, is itself commentary I think, even if it doesn't spell out the message for the reader).

If I were in a game where oligarchies are just the norm, to the extent that we are immersing in living in an oligarchy. I don't think I need the GM to have us waging war against it, for me to get the commentary on it.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Cities in RPGs 1- Doskvol

I subscribe to the Indie RPG Newsletter. It’s a good weekly read, with links to other interesting articles, podcasts, and so on.

The author, Thomas Manuel, has decided to do a series that focuses on cities in RPGs. The first (determined by votes from his readers) is about the city of Doskvol, the setting of Blades in the Dark.

I figured I’d post it here to get peoples’ thoughts, and also to discuss useful ways to use cities in games, and good methods/processes for doing so.

So… what kinds of material do folks find useful for urban-based RPGs? Does anyone have best practices to share?

Looking at the newsletter now.

For Urban Adventures a lot of the stuff in the link is what I look for: factions, key cultural features, the setting 'physics' (i.e. all the stuff related to the thought experiment that makes this place different from a place on earth), an overview of districts, etc.).

I find for me I need a bit of granularity on important institutional elements (i.e. who is charge of what, how is crime in the city organized, how is law in the city organized, etc). Living in a city I often use the city I live in as a reference point for the kind of information I need. For example, I have a ward councilor I can contact if there are any immediate problems in my neighborhood, but I can also contact police or fire department (in an RPG this may be swinging in the direction of the players rather than be a resource they are themselves drawing on). In cities for RPGs I like to know those kinds of details (for instance in my wuxia campaign I include a baojia system, which is like a civilian law enforcement system, but that exists alongside a standard constabulary system and a military system. And each section of a town might have a Bao Chief who organizes local patrols of residents and resolves local disputes (it is also a system the government can draw on to recruit manpower for law enforcement or other projects). When it comes to criminal stuff, I like to know what groups are active and what they control, who they protect, who protects them, etc. This doesn't all have to be spelled out, it can be a general guideline so I can sharpen the focus when the players go to 'that shop over there' to try to extort them or something.

 

[hawkeyefan]

So I almost missed the most recent one.

Cities in RPGs 4

This one is about Infinigrad, which is from Infinigrad: The Weird City Toolkit by Michael Raston.

I was entirely unfamiliar with this product until reading this article. I've picked up a copy of the previous entry's focus, Magical Industrial Recolution, but I don't know if I'll pick up Infinigrad. It seems to be mostly a collection of random tables to create a kind of multiversal city (which immediately brings to mind, for me, Sigil from Planescape).

I don't mind random tables... in fact, they can be very useful... but I don't know how much I'd like a product that is essentially nothing but. I could be wrong on this, however; perhaps the book goes into great detail about Infinigrad and is an interesting setting on its own. The way this article is written, it's hard to say.

Is anyone familiar with this product? If so, do you find it useful?