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Making cities feel alive?
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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6815854" data-attributes="member: 4937"><p>While it's certainly true that I often roll two or more times before settling on something that I like, that's not actually the intention of the rules above. The intention of the rules above is that while the party may pass many people on the street, it's only rather unusual events that are brought to their attention. You roll twice, and assume both encounters are present. You then try to think of a scene that involves one or more of those parties either interacting in a way that will draw the PC's attentions, or directly interacting with the PC's. Thus, if you roll a flock of pigeons and a street waif, you don't choose which one you like - you perhaps are inspired to create a waif who is selling stale bread to tourists to feed to Talernga's famous pigeons, and who promises that doing so brings good luck and favor of the goddess. You might leave it at that, and make no more of it than color, or you may decide that in this case the girl's words are literally true and if the PC's feed the pigeons it will draw the attention of a bird spirit that wishes to communicate with the PC's. Or you may decide that it's more interesting if the girl is a pickpocket or working with one (some of that is in the waif and pigeon entries so you can randomly choose if you like).</p><p></p><p>Just as an exercise I rolled on the table, simulating a trip across down and I rolled '3' and '98', which is Street Sweepers and (in this case) Runaway Cart. Now I have some decisions to make. What sort of vehicle is running away on the streets, and why? The first thing that comes to my mind in this case is that it is a pair of students illegally racing fiacres on the city streets, and that in addition to nearly running down the PC's and several other bystanders, they plow over one of the street sweepers.</p><p></p><p>Now what I know about the street sweepers that you may not is that in Talernga, the sweepers are how the city employs the homeless, the indigent, and the petty criminals. They are not of very high station. Some are disabled, mentally or physically. Sweeper duty is somewhere halfway between a social program (in that they are paid and fed and housed) and a prisoner work gang. The sweepers are run jointly by the Temples of Umdios and Pyrnetta. They have a rather uneasy sometimes down right antagonist relationship, and the contradictions in the sweeper service reflect that. Both believe that they are essentially running the whole operation by themselves, and that the other partner is useless. Umdious is the god of cleanliness, self-discipline, resolution, and salt. Pyrnetta, not to be to blunt, is the patron of fools, the laughingstock of the gods, and the world's most famous cuckold - being married to the goddess of adultery. </p><p></p><p>So it would work for me if I had these two students careening through the streets, stirring up a mob, knocking over the carts of greenmongers, and nearly trampling the PC's actually trample and mortally wound a street sweeper - say one that was deaf. Then, I could have one of the lay brothers of either Umdios or Pyrnetta - seeing the PC's having horses and bearing standards indicating knightly rank - charge the PC's with stopping those fools before they killed someone. And then I could run a chase scene, which might lead to other scenes and other encounters.</p><p></p><p>The point is to find inspiration and to do scenes you might not have thought of on your own based out of elements in the life of the city.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 6815854, member: 4937"] While it's certainly true that I often roll two or more times before settling on something that I like, that's not actually the intention of the rules above. The intention of the rules above is that while the party may pass many people on the street, it's only rather unusual events that are brought to their attention. You roll twice, and assume both encounters are present. You then try to think of a scene that involves one or more of those parties either interacting in a way that will draw the PC's attentions, or directly interacting with the PC's. Thus, if you roll a flock of pigeons and a street waif, you don't choose which one you like - you perhaps are inspired to create a waif who is selling stale bread to tourists to feed to Talernga's famous pigeons, and who promises that doing so brings good luck and favor of the goddess. You might leave it at that, and make no more of it than color, or you may decide that in this case the girl's words are literally true and if the PC's feed the pigeons it will draw the attention of a bird spirit that wishes to communicate with the PC's. Or you may decide that it's more interesting if the girl is a pickpocket or working with one (some of that is in the waif and pigeon entries so you can randomly choose if you like). Just as an exercise I rolled on the table, simulating a trip across down and I rolled '3' and '98', which is Street Sweepers and (in this case) Runaway Cart. Now I have some decisions to make. What sort of vehicle is running away on the streets, and why? The first thing that comes to my mind in this case is that it is a pair of students illegally racing fiacres on the city streets, and that in addition to nearly running down the PC's and several other bystanders, they plow over one of the street sweepers. Now what I know about the street sweepers that you may not is that in Talernga, the sweepers are how the city employs the homeless, the indigent, and the petty criminals. They are not of very high station. Some are disabled, mentally or physically. Sweeper duty is somewhere halfway between a social program (in that they are paid and fed and housed) and a prisoner work gang. The sweepers are run jointly by the Temples of Umdios and Pyrnetta. They have a rather uneasy sometimes down right antagonist relationship, and the contradictions in the sweeper service reflect that. Both believe that they are essentially running the whole operation by themselves, and that the other partner is useless. Umdious is the god of cleanliness, self-discipline, resolution, and salt. Pyrnetta, not to be to blunt, is the patron of fools, the laughingstock of the gods, and the world's most famous cuckold - being married to the goddess of adultery. So it would work for me if I had these two students careening through the streets, stirring up a mob, knocking over the carts of greenmongers, and nearly trampling the PC's actually trample and mortally wound a street sweeper - say one that was deaf. Then, I could have one of the lay brothers of either Umdios or Pyrnetta - seeing the PC's having horses and bearing standards indicating knightly rank - charge the PC's with stopping those fools before they killed someone. And then I could run a chase scene, which might lead to other scenes and other encounters. The point is to find inspiration and to do scenes you might not have thought of on your own based out of elements in the life of the city. [/QUOTE]
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